The morning of the all hands summon to the Blasted Lands, Aely went for a walk. The late fall air was clear and cool, and leaves crunched under their feet in the less-traveled parts of the streets. She and Roger took the long way around Old Town, south through Tanner Circle and down Bulwarks, across […]

So… I have a really bad case of ‘Grumpus’ this morning, as I’m still not sleeping, so I’m going to try to keep the ranting to a minimum and just throw some opinions out there. There is currently, on the PTR, a MS type debuff now acting off the Shaman Flametongue Weapon buff. This… is utterly senseless. And while this will have little/no effect on PVE players, once again Blizzard is tailoring their game based on PVP concerns – and not just any PVP concerns, but specifically Arena concerns, just like they did with the recent lifebloom and lifetap nerfs. And I’m sure (at this rate) that they’ll continue to do with future 2.4 changes.

Thing is, I’m not sure this will change much about the effectiveness of shaman in arenas either. (I could be wrong, of course) The whole thing just screams “we want you to shut up about class balance, so here’s a random buff to make you quit grousing; don’t you love us now?”

Of course, I’m not the only one to find this whole bit about balancing the entire game around PVP rather reprehensible, especially when “balance” seems to mean “make everyone the same”. Leafy certainly feels strongly about it. As does Siha over at Banana Shoulders. As do many other bloggers getting behind Leafy’s Dont Nerf Trees banners. And I think Siha probably said it best.

[PVP Balance] is never going to happen until everyone in PvP plays the same class, with the same talent spec, nude.

I’d hate to see this game turn into a boring mush where everyone is the same spec with the same skills and wears the same gear, but I fear we’re headed in that direction. I mean… how many arcanist reskins do we need, really? Are you going to give priests a MS debuff next? How about kitty druids? (Opaladin mentioned that we should do that and then call the debuff “Cat Scratch Fever”).

Are we all going to have CC abilities, since everyone knows it just isn’t *FAIR* if some people have CC and others don’t. Know what? Screw fair. I’ve played enhancement and elemental shaman. Yeah, not having CC kind of sucks. Having totems rocks my socks.

I personally find it interesting to have different classes that can do different things, and if Blizzard didn’t realize before they let loose the Arena system that this kind of relentless squeaky wheel syndrome was going to happen, then they’re more blind about their players than any of us have ever thought. It has never made sense to me that pre BC all the PVP information was that it would NEVER be balanced for 1v1 stuff and was only intended for groups… and yet here they are, trying to balance it for 1v1 or 2v2 (gogo lifebloom nerf?) because of the Arenas.

So here’s hoping blizzard doesn’t kill their game trying balance the concerns of a bunch of grousing arena players who will *never* be happy while completely destroying the PVE experience that makes up the larger portion of Warcraft players.

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Too Many Annas ?

Anna is a 20-something gamer on the Feathermoon (US RP-PVE) Server in World of Warcraft. Here you'll find all kinds of
assorted things about WoW, including roleplay, raiding, and whatever else Anna feels like rambling about today. She's got a lot of alts, so you never know what you'll find!